Admit children of all central govt employees: SC to Sanskriti School

The Supreme Court on Thursday directed prestigious Sanskriti School in the Capital to admit children of all central government employees with transferable jobs for the upcoming academic year and not just civil services.

Sanskriti School reserves as much as 60% of its seats for the wards of Group A bureaucrats. The temporary order opens the gates of the school to the children of Group B officers as well.

A bench, headed by justice AR Dave, also said that the school shall also give preference to the children of all Indian Foreign Service officers, defence services officers and central government officers posted in Delhi.

As an interim measure, the SC also put on hold the Delhi high court verdict that quashed the school’s reservation policy. It asked both Sanskriti and the Centre to submit a scheme on how they intended to continue with the reservation policy without a legal backing.

The Delhi high court had quashed the reservation policy last year, stating that it catered to the “elite” group. The court also held that the school received government grants from the state exchequer.

The apex court gave them six weeks’ time to submit the report and fixed April 6 to finally determine whether the school is managed by the state or a private society.

The bench clarified that its order would not interfere with the Delhi government’s notification striking down the management quota. Delhi government’s counsel Siddharth Dave argued that the 60% reservation amounted to having a management quota.

A forum of private schools has already challenged the notification before the Delhi high court, which is likely to give a final order on January 28.

Senior counsel Kapil Sibal, assisting the court in the case, asserted the school and government must come out with a policy in support of its reservation for the elite class of bureaucrats.